


Flowering Pain

by littl3d0ll



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Steven Universe - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki Disease, Highschool AU, Human AU, One Shot, One-Sided Attraction, One-Sided Love, Spinel has hanahaki disease, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, hanahaki, unrequited feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2020-03-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littl3d0ll/pseuds/littl3d0ll
Summary: Spinel starts to violently cough up flowers after hanging out with her childhood best friend- Steven- and his newly found girlfriend Connie, forcing her to realize her feelings for him, and that he will never feel the same.
Relationships: Steven & Spinel, Steven/Connie, Steven/Spinel - Relationship, Stevinel - Relationship
Comments: 3
Kudos: 45





	Flowering Pain

**Author's Note:**

> If you listen to music while reading, I suggest listening to “Jar of Hearts” while reading this fic :)

Spinel feels stupid- no, she is stupid. She thought she would be able to escape this curse... she though Steven did. He was in love with Connie, she knew that, he never stopped talking about her. How Spinel hated that. She’s been in denial for a long, long time... she didn’t want to believe it. She had hoped that Connie didn’t feel the same way... she had convinced herself that she doesn’t. She had convinced herself that Steven would confess and get let down, and then she could be there for him...

She had convinced herself that he had evaded the curse, and that she could too, or at least, she could evade falling for him, but she couldn’t. She’s been falling for a long time now, and she could always feel the flowers trying to climb up from her lungs to her mouth, to the outside air, but she’d suppress it. 

She knew, she’s always known, she’s always been aware of her falling somewhere in the back of her mind. She just didn’t want to accept it, she didn’t want to deal with the consequences, but suppressing it always makes it worse she knows that. Even now, as she’s on her knees in her bathroom, crying and coughing up these roses, she still doesn’t want to accept it. She doesn’t want to accept how she could have been so foolish, so naive, so foolishly hopeful...

But the flowers never lie. She was in love with Steven, and he didn’t love her back. He never would. He’s in love with someone else, and that someone else loves him back, and they’ll likely get together and she’ll have to watch it all from the sidelines. Hopeless. 

She hugged herself, trying to comfort herself as she watched the flowers mixed with blood violently evicted from her body. It was painful, so, so painful... she had had a bad case of bronchitis before but this is so much worse than that. With every cough it feels as though her lungs are being ripped apart over and over and over again as blood rapidly flooded her chest completely. She could taste the blood in her mouth mixed with her salty tears, and she felt the red, liquid iron in her chest with every cough she let out and breath she let in.

She looked down at the flowers, a pile of pink roses and petals on the dark tiled floor, now stained with blood and broken-hearted tears. Most of the flowers were damaged in some way- either crumpled and torn or missing some petals, which could be found on the floor, somewhere deep in the puddles of blood. There were a few however which looked fine- perfect, even, say for the massive amounts of blood covering them. 

She spotted one of the perfect ones, one that had just a few splatters of blood on it. She carefully took it in her hands, allowing some of her tears to land on its perfect and pretty little petals, washing away some of the blood. Perhaps there was some sort of metaphor to be had with this flower, something about how something so beautiful could come out of her during one of her worst moments, but it felt like such a sick joke to her. 

She got angry looking at it, and closed her hands around it tightly, crumpling and messing up the rose. She kept squeezing it, not letting go of the tight grip even as her hands shook. All her pent up frustration and heart break was directed towards this once beautiful flower as the tears continued, staining her already-bloody uniform. She finally let go of her grip on the flower, now crumpled up and wrinkly, with a couple of the petals falling out. She still wasn’t satisfied, though.. 

she stood up, ripping the flower to pieces and throwing it onto the messy floor. She stared at the mess she had made, panting, rage now taking over where her sadness had once been- this was such an ugly mess. 

She stomped on the pile of flowers and petals, not caring about her boots being stained by blood, or her uniform being stained by blood, or hair from her buns becoming loose and getting into her face. She didn’t care about anything in this moment, not even about Steven or Connie or her feelings, her focus right now being on the ugly mess of flowers and blood on her floor. Such an ugly, pitiful mess, just like her. 

She grunted as she jumped on the pile, blood and petals and broken flowers getting stuck to her black boots as she painted for air, not feeling the horrible feeling of flowers trying to crawl out of her lungs anymore.

She then stopped suddenly, looking down at her messy work, still feeling angry and unsatisfied. She felt like screaming. She felt like screaming out all of her anger and frustration, and so she did. She belted out a loud scream at the top of her lungs, collapsing down back into the ground as she did so, her knees becoming bloody and sticky with flowers and rose petals. 

She screamed for as long as she could, glad that nobody could hear here from her small, secluded home which she shared with nobody. She gradually stopped screaming as she couldn’t anymore, gasping for air once she was done. She felt a bit better after doing that, though she still feels pretty awful and now she’s thirsty and light headed. She slowly got up again, having to use the help of her sink, figuring it a good idea to go and get some water. She paused for a moment to look at herself in her mirror, taking in just how much of a mess she was. 

Every morning she would wake up very early just to put her hair in these adorable and neat little buns in the shape of hearts, she has been doing so for years ever since he mentioned how she would look cute in them. In hindsight he was probably joking, but she took it seriously and started doing it, just for him. It was such a painstaking process that still takes her a long time to do even after years of practice, but now they were messy with hair out of place. If it weren’t for all the pins she’d use and how tightly she’d do the buns they would’ve completely undone by now, which wouldn’t really have mattered since she undid them herself right then and there. She couldn’t stand seeing them right now, seeing her daily hours of effort to impress going down in flames. She took notice of her running mascara and bloody and tear-stained clothes, but she figured she could deal with that later, she just wanted some water right now.

She left her mess of a bathroom, taking off her boots so she wouldn’t have to clean up and bloody prints around the house too, and went down to the first floor of this lonely house to where her fridge was. Steven’s aunts were kind enough to let her live with them after finding out she didn’t have a home or parents, and she was grateful for that. She was also grateful that they were out for the week so she wouldn’t have to deal with their worrying right now- having one person trying to make her feel better and talk about her feelings was the last thing she wanted right now, let alone three. 

She reached the fridge and opened it, taking out the large beaker with water and drinking the water straight from it. She desperately drank all of the water in it, feeling the cool liquid in her salty blood-soaked mouth washing it all away and quenching the large thirst she didn’t notice she had until now. She finished drinking and let out a satisfied sigh, still tasting the blood in her mouth and feeling like her lungs have been through a shredder, but it’s a bit more bearable now. 

Spinel then went to the living room deciding to watch some TV to take her mind off things, and maybe fall asleep watching some shitty infomercials. Tossing herself onto the couch she grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. Some sort of Telenovela was playing, and while usually she’d be all for the drama and romance of a Latino setting, she really didn’t want to deal with anything to do with romance right now. She just skipped the channel, and kept skipping channels until she found one filled with infomercials she could mindlessly watch as she drifted off to sleep. She had already tired herself out with all the crying and coughing earlier so it didn’t take long for her to drift off.

Her eyes started to feel heavy, and she soon found herself succumbing to a dreamless sleep, aware of the fact that there won’t be anybody there to wake her tomorrow, or to catch her in her current state ask if she was okay or start worrying. She was fine with that, she thought.


End file.
